Officials in a Florida county announced last week that 244 suspects were arrested during a multi-day operation targeting human trafficking.
The office said that federal offices, including the Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the U.S. Army Criminal Investigations Division, were involved, along with local law enforcement.
Notably, 36 people who were arrested were in the United States illegally from eight different countries: Venezuela, Cuba, Honduras, Mexico, Haiti, Colombia, Guatemala, and Brazil, according to the statement.
Twenty-two of the suspects said they were receiving government assistance, and 221 were traveling from outside Polk County, including people coming to Florida from 12 states. The youngest person arrested was 17, and the oldest was 70, according to the sheriff’s office.
Some 93 suspects accused of traveling “to commit prostitution were screened by detectives and the social services organizations to determine if they were being trafficked or exploited by others, and were offered services by the social services organizations at the operation,” the sheriff’s office stated, adding that four possible human trafficking victims were located.
Another 141 suspects were arrested for soliciting a prostitute, while 10 were arrested for aiding and abetting, transporting, or deriving proceeds from prostitution, according to the statement.
One suspect was actively in the military, 13 were veterans, and several were involved in the health care industry, law enforcement officials said.
“Several suspects either left their wives or girlfriends at home,” the sheriff’s office stated, “or the women thought their partners were at work, visiting a friend, or going to the gym.”
Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said that during the investigation, officials arrested 11 “child predators who solicited who they thought were children online in order to sexually batter them.”
“The online prostitution industry enables traffickers and allows for the continued victimization of those who are being trafficked. Our goal is to identify victims, offer them help, and arrest those who are fueling the exploitation of human beings ... and those profiting from the exploitation of human beings,” the sheriff said.
“If you harm our children, you will be given no sanctuary,” FBI Director Kash Patel said at an event earlier this month in announcing those arrests. U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said that the cases span the United States, “from California, to New York, to Florida.”
